aprender idiomas

In most people’s mind the word “expat” recalls images of luxury, shiny desks in multinational corporates and privileged lifestyles. On the other hand, when it comes about the term “immigrant”, we tend to think about dreams, hopes and cardboard suitcases. Two words, two deeply different concepts.

As someone who has been living in Asia for several years, I’ve always taken for granted that I was an expat. In Asia just looking Western immediately qualifies me as such from local people’s perspective.

In China most locals assume that all Westerners are beautiful, rich, smart and powerful. While in Hong Kong people are more used to foreign presence, you can still feel some respect and admiration towards the Western community. In Taiwan foreigners’ reputation is generally not that positive, as Taiwanese know that expats enjoy much better salaries and privileges than locals with fewer obligations.

In all these places though, Westerner equals expat.

Indeed in Asia the difference between expat and immigrant is purely based on race: Westerners are expats while dark-skinned people are immigrants. This mindset is very strong throughout East Asia because in countries such as China, Japan and Korea the local population is genetically very homogenous. For this reason, the concept of cultural identity corresponds to the concept of racial identity. For instance, in order to be considered Japanese you have to be born and raised in Japan in a Japanese family.Naturalization does not really exist.

The distinction between expat and immigrant gets more blurred in the West. In countries like US, UK and Australia the local population is genetically very heterogeneous, therefore the national identity is based on shared culture rather than race. If you were born a raised in the US you are American, whether you look Caucasian, Asian or Black. For this reason living in a Western country as a foreigner is very different from moving to Asia from Europe or the US.

The elements that determine a foreigner’s social status in the West are education, money, career and social network. For instance a French banker who is employed by a big corporate and moves to London for work is an expat. On the other hand, a Spanish construction worker who moves to the US willing to take any job in order to pursue a better future is an immigrant.

Are expat and immigrant two words that simply define a rich foreigner and poor foreigner? The issue is not that easy.

Some people think that the real distinction between expat and immigrant relies on where salaries and taxes are paid. The true expat would be hired by a company in his home country and then sent to a foreign branch of the company for a limited amount of time. In this case salaries and taxes would be paid in the expat’s home country. Differently, if a person was hired directly in a foreign country with a local contract, then we could call him an immigrant.

But what about those people with high-profile jobs who decide to move to a new country autonomously and get very high paying jobs at local companies? Are they to be considered immigrants as well?

Another school of thought defines the difference between expat and immigrant according to the length of stay. For instance, if the foreigner planned to stay in the host country only for a limited amount of time, then he would be an expat. Differently, if the foreigner had in mind to stay long-term, integrate with the local community and settle down in the new country, the he would be an immigrant.

In conclusion, it looks like the difference between expat and immigrant is actually very ambiguous and everyone has his own idea about it. While in some areas of the world the distinction is purely based on racial factors, in other regions the elements that determine which category you belong to are less precise. Everyone picks for himself the definition he feels comfortable with.

Sometimes you just can’t help clicking, no matter how reasonable of a person you think you are. At least, I can’t. Clickbait is anything that creates the desire to press a button or click the link based upon its outrageous or fantastic claims. The imperative to “get more clicks” is the mantra for many web developers and content providers these days. The misleading and often sensational manner of getting them is not important.

Capital Punishment – 10 Tips on Capitalisation

It’s great to be back, albeit a little later than I would prefer. It has been a fabulously busy few weeks at Intrepid English with several new students, lots of new translating work and some proof-reading, too.

I have also been lucky enough to attend several events recently, including a fantastic seminar at Aston University in Birmingham and the LUXEXPO in Luxembourg. I am a big fan of Luxembourg and I really enjoyed being part of the UK Trade and Investment’s delegation of business owners who travelled there for three days in June. If you haven’t been to the city before, I would heartily recommend that you put it on your list of European cities to visit. On top of all that, I have been finalising the plans for our wedding in Portugal in August. It’s all very exciting!

Now, this month’s blog is about a topic that I have been asked about a lot recently: capitalisation. It seems that the rules regarding this area of grammar are a little unclear for many people. It is especially difficult for learners whose native language has a capital letter at the beginning of every noun. I was recently told by one student that he had spent many years learning to capitalise every noun in his native language of German, only to find out that he had to start from the beginning again when learning the rules in English. Sorry!

It seems that capital letters have been going ‘out of fashion’ in recent years. This opinion is influenced greatly by the Internet and the laziness of its multitude of users who have decided that spelling, punctuation and recognisable words should be a thing of the past. I can’t imagine how this attitude would benefit those who subscribe to it when applying for a job or conversing with anyone above the age of 20. As I have said on many occasions, English grammar can be a difficult and complex subject and many will never master it completely, but as long as your writing is understandable and easy to read, that’s all you need to be concerned with.

So, when should we use a capital letter in English? Well, it’s not as difficult as you might think. There are several things to keep in mind, but when you have mastered these few rules, it’s just a case of practice makes perfect.

In the printing industry, the term ‘sentence case’ (or ‘sentence-style capitalization’ in American English) refers to sentences starting with an upper-case letter followed by lower-case letters with the exception of proper nouns. This is in contrast to ‘UPPER CASE’, where all the letters are capitalised or ‘Title Case’, in which the first letter of each word is capitalised (with a few exceptions; see Tip 3).

This is not an exhaustive list, but it will go some way to helping you understand when to use the upper case and when to lose it.

As a quick reference, here is a list of words which should be capitalised:

Place names: London, Northern Ireland, New York, Africa

Personal names: Mike, Barack Obama, Roger Rabbit

National and regional adjectives: a Canadian housewife, a Dutch boy

Languages: Russian, Swedish

Churches and religions: Buddhism, St Mary’s church, a Jewish family

Days and months: Monday, November

Brand or company names: Intrepid English, Fair Trade

Royal titles: Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Harry

Jobs: President François Hollande (but not job descriptions eg. the president of France)

Tip 1In British English we follow the colon with a capital letter if the clause following the colon is a new sentence or if the colon introduces two or more complete sentences. In American usage, they do not. After non-final punctuation such as a semicolon or dash, we do not capitalise the first letter, even if it is a separate sentence. See my blog on colons and semicolons for more information.

Tip 2 You should always have a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence. This includes the first sentence in a letter or email, following the salutation. That might seem obvious to some, but in many eastern-European countries, letters and emails are started with a lower-case letter.

Your emails should not begin like this:

Dear Mr Johnson,

regarding your email of 24th June…

They should begin more like this:

Dear Mary,

Thank you for your email regarding…

This does not apply if the first word in your sentence begins with a letter which is always left uncapitalised (such as ‘iPhone’ or ‘eBay’). I would recommend that you rephrase the sentence so that the word is in a different position.

Tip 3 Titles of books, films, songs and games, etc. have the following rules when adhering to British English guidelines: Capitalise the first word of the title, and all words within the title except articles (a/an/the), prepositions (to/on/for etc) andconjunctions (but/and/or etc).

This is an area that many grammarians can’t seem to agree on. If you are planning to write professionally, I would recommend checking the prescribed writing style of the publication for which you are writing.

Tip 4 Don’t use capitalisation for emphasis. That includes capitalising the first letter of any word within the phrase you wish to emphasise. If the wording alone cannot emphasise the point sufficiently, use italics.

Incorrect: The HUGE snake slithered past her feet.

Incorrect: He grabbed her hand and said “Don’t Move Until I Get Back.”

Tip 5 For section and table headings, use sentence case (capitalise the first word only, unless a word is a proper noun or would normally be capitalised).

Tip 6 It is not necessary to capitalise the word ‘the’ unless it is at the beginning of a sentence or it is part of a name which is usually capitalised. This applies to names of corporations and other entities, and some idiomatic expressions. For example, the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister, but The Hague.

Tip 7 If an adjective originates from a proper noun, it should be capitalised, e.g the Spanish people. However, when a term is no longer connected to its namesake or no longer refers to any specific individual; these are not proper names and should be lower cased: jack in the pulpit, round-robin, teddy bear, cheddar cheese etc. For more information, see my blog post on compound adjectives.

Tip 8 Points of the compass (east, southwest, etc.), and their derived forms (southern etc.) should only be capitalised when they are part of a proper name, such as the North Pole or West Ham. The North, The East, The South and The West are considered proper nouns, so these words can be capitalised.

Capital letters are used if the place has attained proper-name status, such as Western Europe or North Korea. Otherwise it is not. If unsure, and you are unable to look it up, assume that it hasn’t attained proper-name status and write the word in lower case.

Tip 9 Seasons are not capitalised: “I love to go swimming in summer.”

Tip 10 The names of family members should be capitalised when they replace a name:

“Last year Grandma sent me a lovely birthday present”

But not when the word follows a possessive:

“Her grandma walks a mile a day to the bus stop.”

That concludes this basic list of tips for capitalisation. This covers ten of the basic rules which cause confusion for many learners of English and native speakers alike. If you are interested in finding out more, please follow the ‘credits’ links at the bottom of this blog post.

Before I go, I must mention one more thing to watch out for regarding capitalisation in English: Capitonyms are words which change in meaning if they are capitalised. An example of this is the word ‘china’. The lower-case word refers to crockery such as plates, cups and saucers. Its upper-cased counterpart refers to the country.

Some common noun capitonyms include:

comet = is a celestial object made of icy and dust

Comet = a chain of electrical shops in Britain and a washing powder in America

march = a piece of music composed to accompany marching or the act of marching itself

March = the third month of the year

burgundy = a deep red colour or a type of red wine

Burgundy = the French region that produces the wine

cancer = a deadly disease

Cancer = a constellation of starts or the astrological sign

polish = a product used to create a shiny surface

Polish = someone or something originating from Poland

turkey = the poultry or the meat derived from it

Turkey = a country

liberal = a person if liberal views

Liberal = a member of the Liberal political party

As always, if you have any questions regarding this or any of my blog posts, or you would like to request a topic for next month’s Real English blog, please feel free to send me an email at intrepidpotential@live.co.uk or leave a comment below.

the results are in…bilingual is better!

The most significant advantage which has been reported recently must be the fact that “bilingual patients developed dementia 4.5 years later than the monolingual ones.” This was the outcome of a research lead by Dr Thomas Bak. It also concluded that “bilingual switching between different sounds, words, concepts, grammatical structures and social norms constituted a form of natural brain training, which was likely to be more effective than any artificial brain training programme”. For further details, read BBC’s article Speaking a second language may delay dementia. The full research paper can be bought here.Bilingualism has also been found to enhance a child’s working memory as shown by a research conducted at the University of Granada under the supervision of Ellen Bialystok. The “working memory includes the structures and processes associated with the storage and processing of information over short periods of time.” You can read more about this in the article Bilingual children have a better “working memory” than monolingual childrenIn their article Being Bilingual Makes YouSmarterThe social network Verbalisti write that “the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks.”Bilinguals are better at multi-tasking. “Children who grow up learning to speak two languages are better at switching between tasks than are children who learn to speak only one language” as explained in Bilingual Children Switch Tasks Faster than Speakers of a Single Language

Bilingualism makes you more open-minded and sensitive to others: “bilinguals have an enhanced awareness of other people’s points of view, born from their deeper understanding, from an early age, that some people have a different perspective.” This probably makes bilinguals better managers as well as stated in the Financial Times article The Multilingual Dividend

Bilingual children are less easily distracted. Judy Willis MD, a neurologist, teacher and author states that “compared to monolinguals, the bilingual children develop greater attention focus, distraction resistance, decision-making judgment and responsiveness to feedback” and that “research supports encouraging parents to retain use of their native language in the home” in her article Neuroscience and the Bilingual Brain.

If you grow up as a bilingual you are often also bicultural. In his article Advantages of Being Bicultural Prof François Grosjean lists the benefits as “having a greater number of social networks, being aware of cultural differences, taking part in the life of two or more cultures, being an intermediary between cultures” as well as having “greater creativity and professional success”.

The very first week that I arrived here in Buenos Aires, about 7 months ago, I attended a conversation night at LV Studio. I was a little nervous and hesitant about going, but I figured that I needed to take a chance and try some new things in order to meet more people and really practice my Spanish.

When I arrived there were two other people there, one young woman from Germany and another young man from Australia. The three of us had a great class with a very helpful teacher who had been born and raised in Buenos Aires and after we all went to dinner and to have some drinks. The three of us hit it off right away. Months later the guy from Australia returned to his home country and the woman from Germany and I continue to grab coffee occasionally or meet each other for a Saturday night drink. She has become one of my closest friends.

After a couple of months working for LV Studio as an English teacher, I was asked to teach the conversation nights. Now, I try to alternate. Some Friday nights I am the teacher for the English students and other nights, I participate as a student practicing her Spanish. However, I have found that no matter what role I find myself playing, I always enjoy myself. I find myself meeting some pretty awesome people from all over the world, enjoying a beer and learning a million new things (whether they be in English or Spanish).

There is always a friendly face to welcome any and all newcomers to Buenos Aires and always a good time waiting to be had.

If you haven’t ever tried a conversation night with LV Studio or if you’ve gone maybe once, but haven’t returned, I highly suggest that you try it. You never know who you’ll end up meeting.